Eight Missing and One Confirmed Dead in Freighter Accident Near Tokyo Bay

A cargo ship sank after colliding with another in areas just outside Tokyo Bay early Tuesday, leaving a crew member on the ill-fated ship dead and eight others missing.

The sunken freighter, the 12,630-ton Panamanian-registered Beagle III, hit the 7,406-ton South Korean-registered Pegasus Prime at a point some 6 kilometers off the cape of Tsurugizaki in the city of Miura, Kanagawa Prefecture, south of Tokyo, around 3:10 a.m. (6:10 p.m. Monday GMT).

Of the Beagle III’s 20 crew members, all of whom are Chinese, 12 were rescued by a passenger vessel sailing nearby and a Japan Coast Guard patrol ship, but one of them, a male member, was confirmed dead later, according to the coast guard’s third regional headquarters in the Kanagawa capital of Yokohama.

The remaining eight are missing, and the coast guard is continuing to search for them.

The Beagle III was on its way to Kobe, Hyogo Prefecture, western Japan, after departing from Yokohama, while the Pegasus Prime was headed for Tokyo from South Korea’s Gunsan.